Running Away from a Man in Need

Apparently that was the mantra for many folks who finished Sunday's Chicago Marathon at or around 3 hours 20 minutes, in their tunnel-vision dash to the line.

As captured on video by a cameraman for Chicago's Fox affiliate, a man in Sunday's race collapsed near the finish line, clearly delirious, then started to crawl forward, head down. Meantime, dozens of runners rushed past, some grinning, some hand-in-hand, some with arms raised in triumph.

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Finally, two runners paused to help the guy up. As the Fox reporter described it,

Runner after runner passes the man... he drags himself along the pavement, on hands and knees, while everyone around dashes to the finish line. ...

But then two men, who do not know him or each other, stop to check on the guy.

The Good Samaritans helped the guy to the finish, where medical personnel whisked him away. (NOTE: The video notes that medics were on their way to help the fallen runner, but that these two got there first.)

After watching the footage one anchor called the story "heartwarming."

Has it really come to this? It's "heartwarming"—or, heck, even newsworthy—when two human beings stop what they're doing to aid a fellow human being who is obviously sick or hurt? Maybe dying, for all they know?

I applaud the two gentlemen who put their own race on hold to assist a fellow runner. But isn't the real story here the masses who streamed around the guy as he collapsed to the pavement and then crawled pathetically ahead? They either saw this man and deliberately ignored him; or, so blinded by their own self-focus, didn't see him at all.

I'm not sure which is worse.

Have we really become this callous, this ego-centric? Or am I overanalyzing?

And while we're at it: Has anyone out there been in a similar situation, whether as the runner in distress, the Good Samaritan, or the masses streaming past? Leave your story in the Comments section, below.

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